Big Brakes

[Helge Wunderlich]

On Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:54:35 +1200, Dave Eaton wrote:

>a f1 car will decelerate at 1g from speed simply by lifting off the
>accelerator...

I have heard that too, but it, of course, depends a lot on the speed.
I guess the 1G deceleration is at near top speed.

>I was going to respond with pretty much the same but then I got around to
>thinking about the brakes on F1's and other race cars... with those isn't
>the hotter the better?

The reason hotter is better is because temperature difference is what
drives the heat transport away from the brakes. If you can build
brakes that can handle more heat, you can build them smaller and
lighter, which are good properties in F1.

>  I read that some brakes with these cars don't even
>start to work well until the reach temps that would pretty much melt the
>brakes on my cars :)

I have also read that many of the drivers did not like the carbon
brakes when they were introduced, because they were considerably more
difficult to modulate properly than the steel brakes.

-- 
Helge Wunderlich